More than 150 hours after he was trapped under the rubble of his home in Turkey's worst earthquake, a four-year-old boy was pulled to safety and was recovering in hospital last night.

Ismail Cimen's relatives had given up hope of finding him alive and had dug his grave. But yesterday morning his uncle, Sait Cimen, was clearing masonry when he heard the boy shouting for help from under the collapsed balcony of an apartment block in Cinarcik, on the Sea of Marmara.

Foreign search and rescue workers, who were preparing to pull out of the disaster area having called off their mission, rushed to the scene. They shone torches into an 18in gap and spotted the boy's face squinting into the light. "It's a miracle of God," his uncle said.

The boy was flown by military helicopter to Istanbul's Cerrahpasa hospital. Medical staff said he was dehydrated, hungry and at risk from kidney failure but would regain his strength in a few days.

Last night he was sitting up in bed, his black hair covered by the baseball cap one of his Israeli rescuers had given him. As nurses monitored his condition, he played with a paper aeroplane made from folded prescription slips. Dark brown dust still covered his nails.

Describing his ordeal, he whispered through chapped lips: "I was awake early in the morning playing with my toy truck. Than I fell. I was very scared, very afraid. It was dark and hot. I cried for my parents. They didn't answer. I was very hungry and thirsty. Please give me water and biscuits, I thought. I want biscuits."

His uncle, sitting by his side, said: "I am so happy I cannot say. We thought Ismail was dead. We had even prepared a grave for him in his home town. Now he is with us - thanks to Allah."

The boy is expected to make a full physical recovery. But Ayse Akcan, a senior paediatrician, said he had been deeply traumatised by his experience. Ismail's mother, Serife, survived the collapse of the building and is in hospital in Bursa; his father and three sisters, aged eight to 13, all died. The body of one sister was buried in rubble only a few metres from him.

Ismail's father, Fatih, had worked as a guard at the construction sites of the developer Veli Gocer, who is blamed for causing thousands of deaths by using shoddy material in his buildings. He has admitted using poor material and is wanted by the authorities but has not been captured.

"Ismail has suffered psychiatric damage and the child psychology team will be down to examine him tomorrow," Dr Akcan said. "Spending so long under the rubble with dozens of bodies is a terrible experience for anyone, especially a young child."

Almost one week after the tragedy, which has killed almost 13,000 people with up to 30,000 more still entombed in the rubble, those who survived are starting to tell harrowing tales of how they battled for life under mountains of twisted steel and masonry.

From her bed in Cerrahpasa hospital Emine Karatos, 26, said yesterday: "I am born again." She spent four days cradling her niece, aged five, under the wreckage of a five-storey apartment block in Golcuk before rescue workers pulled the pair out.

As doctors bandaged her crushed arms yesterday, she sipped nectarine juice and described her 100 hours under rubble so dense she could not move her face.

"When the earth started shaking I thought it must be the end of all the world. I could feel myself falling and then there was a cracking noise. The bedroom ceiling fell directly down on me and my niece Ebru who was sleeping in my bed."

The wooden frame of the bed stopped the masonry millimetres from their faces but their legs were badly gashed. The five-year-old is in intensive care in Cerrahpasa hospital and doctors say her chances of survival are slim.

"After the noise of the earthquake it was suddenly very quiet," Ms Karatos said. "Ebru started crying. She said: 'My feet are cut. I want mama and papa.' I could hear her parents shouting for her from the rubble. 'Do not scream,' I said. 'Save your breath.' "

She said the choking dust almost suffocated her. "It was in my mouth, my nose, my eyes and my throat and I felt very, very thirsty. I was sweating, getting dehydrated."

She tried to keep her spirits up by whispering to her brother, who was trapped yards away. "Every hour we told each other that we loved each other but after one day I could not hear his voice any more. I kept asking: 'Are you still there? Are you all right?' But in my heart I knew he was dead." Ms Karatos described how her niece contracted a fever on the second day under the rubble. "Ebru was very hot and I tried to take her shirt off. She went to the toilet and I tried to use a pillow to mop it up and cool her down."

On the third day she was so dehydrated she prepared herself for death. "I thought in this accident everybody must have to die. I thought I would be a corpse so I prayed to Allah for living."

Her prayers were answered on Friday when she heard a team of Spanish rescue workers digging in the distance. "I screamed and screamed. At first they could not hear but then they put a microphone inside the building. I kept shouting with a big voice: 'Help us. We are two.' Then I heard a man say: 'We are coming in half an hour.' "

One hour later a dusty hand broke through the rubble. "The light was too strong for me to look," she said. "They lifted Ebru out and then the Spanish man took my hand and lifted me to my feet. I asked: 'Can I kiss you?' He said yes. I kissed him and wept. I told him 'Thank you. You have given me another life.' Now I can't stop smiling."

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